Anthony Conquers The Kanamits
by SuperBear
Summary: The title says it all. The powerful little boy from "It's A Good Life" takes on the human-eating aliens from "To Serve Man." This story also acts as a kind of prequel to "It's A Good Life" and explains why Anthony sent away everyone and everything on Earth.
1. You Go Away, Kanamits!

"Go away, Kanamits! You go away!"

Anthony Fremont, using whatever power he had, began to undo some of the things the Kanamits had done.

You could tell Anthony was using his power by the way the freckle-faced boy had his face scrunched up, by the way he glared, by the way he clenched his tiny fists.

Floating TV sets hovered over the cornfield. Each TV screen showed a round saucer, a giant Kanamit spaceship, above a different city. Paris. Munich. London. Tokyo. Washington DC. New York City. Many others.

As Anthony glared, each spaceship, one by one, disappeared.

Anthony looked back at his father who gave him an approving smile. In response, Anthony nodded and smiled. Which was odd. The boy rarely smiled.

How did all this begin? It began when a tall bald Kanamit made the mistake of walking into Anthony's backyard. Wearing a hideous too-big smile, the Kanamit knelt down to talk to Anthony.

"My, my, little boy," he said in a comically deep announcer voice. "You look good enough to eat."

This was after the television stations broadcast the film clip of the woman shouting, "'To Serve Man!' It's a cookbook!" After that, the Kanamits stopped pretending they were anything but human-eating creatures. And they especially enjoyed taunting children.

No doubt it was the loathsome character of the Kanamits that caused Anthony to shoot a harsh look at his tall bald visitor.

"You're a bad man!" he shouted. "You're a very bad man!"

The Kanamit's smile drooped in the moment just before he vanished. But that wasn't enough for Anthony. As he stood up, and clenched his fists, the other Kanamits in the area vanished along with their spaceship.

Seeing this, Don Fremont rushed over to his son.

"Anthony, these Kanamits. They're all over the world."

Agnes Fremont took her place beside her husband. "Maybe if you think hard enough, you can make more of them go away," she said gently. "Even a little bit would help."

"I will," Anthony said with a fierce determined look on his face.

And so it was that those TV sets hovered over the cornfield, showing not one single Kanamit spaceship.

The father smiled as he put his arms around his boy. "Son, I knew you could create two-headed animals. But I honestly didn't think you could do all this!"

"It took hours but you did it." The mother's smile twitched a little. "It must be this terrible situation that's brought out all this great power in you."

"That could be, I guess," Anthony said with a shrug. Reverting to his usual angry face, he looked up at his parents. "They were bad men! They were very bad men!"

"They were," the mother said as she stroked her son's hair.

"But you got rid of their spaceships," Mr. Fremont said.

"I sent them all away!" Anthony nodded toward the TV screens. "You tell about what I did, news man. You tell everyone!"

On each TV screen, Walter Cronkite appeared. Mother and father listened attentively as Mr. Cronkite read a news item.

"We're getting reports from around the world of the Kanamits and their spaceships, how it seems they have all disappeared. So far, there is not a single report of even one Kanamit sighting."

The father smiled proudly, arms around his wife. The mother smiled broadly as she gasped and clasped her hands. Anthony used a toy shovel to pick at dirt on the ground.

Cronkite went on in his serious somber tone. "Spaceships on their way to the Kanamits' home planet have returned to Earth with all passengers intact but not a single Kanamit on board. Here to confirm this is decoding specialist Michael Chambers."

A dark-haired man with a dazed look and a loose tie mumbled into a microphone.

"I found the door to my room open. Or maybe I should say I found the door to my cell open. Once I got out in the corridor, I found only the other prisoners, no Kanamits. When we went down the stairs at the main entrance, we found we were back on Earth. But again, we have encountered no Kanamits. Not on the ship, not on the ground. I repeat: we haven't seen any Kanamits."

"And there you have it," Cronkite said. "That's the way it is."

"Anthony, did you do that?" the father asked as he knelt down. "Did you bring that ship back?"

"I brought them all back," Anthony said as he continued to dig. "But not the Kanamits. I sent them all away. I sent them somewhere they'll never bother us again. Where they're frozen and can't do anything."

"Good work, son!"

Mr. Fremont beamed but Mrs. Fremont's smile was still a little nervous.

"It was real good you did that, Anthony."

"I know," the boy said blithely. Then he lit up. "Hey! I just got an idea! Watch this!"

Once again, Anthony glared, and several Kanamits appeared in the backyard. They were all shaking and holding each other. This got worse when several police cars appeared along with dazed and confused police officers. The guns flew out of their hands and fired by themselves. Before the bullets could hit the Kanamits, they stopped in mid-air and hung there. Great tears shot out of the eyes of the trembling Kanamit huggers.

Anthony waved one hand and the bullets fell. With a wave of his other hand, cars, Kanamits and cops-all went away.

"That was real good," the mother said in a fearful voice. "That was real good you did that, Anthony."

The father knelt down and clasped Anthony's shoulders. "You saved us, son. You saved the world!"

"I know," Anthony said as he continued to dig. Looking up, he squinted as he formed a serious look of uncertainty. "The thing is, other aliens might try to hurt the people of Earth. I have to put everyone where they'll be safe and no one can bother them."

Anthony formed his most serious look of concentration.

On the floating TV screens, one by one, each city disappeared. London. Munich. Tokyo. Washington, DC. New York. All the people and buildings gone.

Then each floating TV set vanished.

Now Mrs. Fremont trembled as she clutched her husband. The man wore a dazed frightened look, and he was barely able to speak.

"Anthony, did you send them all away, all the cities?"

Anthony rose. "I sent away everyone and everything," he said proudly. As he squinted with one eye, he curled his lower lip. "Everyone on Earth is in a safe place now. The Kanamits are in another place. It's a place I call the cornfield. That's where I send bad people and freeze them."

When the freckle-faced boy smiled, it was a smile that was not quite right. "Now it'll just be us, the people in this town. And if anyone comes to bother us, I'll send them away. Into the cornfield."

As the mother wept and the father stared, Anthony plopped down on the ground and once again used his small shovel to dig up clods of dirt.

"Now I want to play for a while," he said. His voice was as harash and sinister as the look on his face. "And nobody better bother me."


	2. Wake Up, Anthony

It was Aunt Amy who did it.

While her nephew Anthony concentrated on turning yet another person into a jack-in-the-box, Amy grabbed the poker from the fireplace and knocked him on the head.

It wasn't an act of malice, really. More like Amy was dazed and out of it, as she had been ever since Anthony robbed her of her ability to sing.

As her son lay curled up on the floor, Agnes Fremont said, "Oh, no."

Anthony's father checked for a pulse. "It's all right. He's just unconscious."

Amy went to the window and looked out.

"Yes, it's all right," she said in a low mumbling absent voice. "We don't need to be afraid any more. Look, people are coming out of the cornfield. Anthony has no power now."

"I'll sedate him." Bill, the delivery man from the store, held up a syringe. Probably one of the last ones in town.

"No, no, no, you can't. You mustn't." Agnes shook her head as she held up an open palm.

But Bill had already injected the boy.

"Maybe we won't have to kill him," Bill said. "Maybe we can just keep him like this. In a deep sleep."

"You don't understand," Anthony's mother said tearfully. "When the Kanamits took over Earth, Anthony was the one who sent them all away."

"Yes, here they are," Amy said in her mumbling distant voice.

The others went to the window to look out with Aunt Amy. Besides people stepping out of the cornfield, there were also the robed Kanamits, the human-eating aliens who once dominated Earth. A Kanamit spaceship hung in the air, the giant saucer casting a shadow over the cornfield.

"Now that Anthony's in a deep sleep, the Kanamits are back," Mrs. Fremont said as her lip quivered.

Next to her, Mr. Fremont looked dazed and frightened. He also spoke in a mumble, his voice laced with quiet panic.

"So you mean we have to make a decision. Which is better: Anthony, or the Kanamits?"

"Anthony, wake up," someone said.

As Anthony opened his eyes, he felt numb and weak and incredibly groggy.

He saw his father and mother smiling down at him.

"What's going on?" he asked in a creaky whisper.

As she smiled, the mother leaned in.

"You were in a coma," she explained sweetly. "But now you're back. You're awake. Finally. You've come back to us."

Anthony made a face. "A coma? That's funny. I had these dreams. I was able to...do things."

"Yes, we heard you talking in your sleep," the mother said with a little laugh.

"It makes sense," his father chuckled. "When you're a little boy with no power, you're going to dream that you have a lot of power."

"Especially when you have a high fever," his mother said.

"But I sent away all the Kanamits," Anthony said in a sleepy voice.

As she leaned closer, the mother put a hand to his cheek. "Well, now you're just an ordinary little boy again. You won't be causing any trouble."

"That's good. I guess." As he sat up, Anthony frowned in confusion.

"I'll bring you some lunch," his mother said.

The father tousled his hair. "Later we'll play some baseball, okay, slugger?"

When the two stepped into the next room, the images of Mr. and Mrs. Fremont dissolved. In their place stood two tall bald Kanamits.

A third Kanmit, sitting at a control panel, glanced at the boy through the observation window.

"Does he suspect anything?"

"Not a thing," the Kanamit on the left said in the voice of Don Fremont.

"He won't be using any of his power," the other Kanamit said in the voice of Agnes Fremont. "The power of suggestion can be a powerful thing."

Control-panel-Kanamit smiled, a hideous smile. "Good. We can resume shipping the people of Earth back to our world. And no one can stop us."


	3. Goodbye, Anthony

"Anthony, wake up."

Feeling unusually groggy, Anthony slowly opened his eyes.

Actually, he realized he was already awake and in somebody's arms and moving along.

"It's me, your father. For real this time." As the man carried him, Anthony could see there were other men, and women, with rifles.

"The Kanamits have been tricking you, son," his father explained as he loaded him into an old rusty pickup. "They've been using a hypnosis machine on you, trying to convince you that you have no power."

"I don't like automobiles," Anthony said in a pouty little boy voice.

"I know you don't, son. But we have to get you out of here, get you away from here before more of the Kanamits show up. And we have to give you time to figure out how to use your power again, to practice."

So the father drove. As they went past a field, he said, "See that cow there, son? See if you can give it two heads. Like you did with gophers. It'll be a good way to start."

While Mr. Fremont smiled, Anthony put on his most angry face. Anthony glared at the cow and it suddenly sprouted a second head. Before Anthony's father could say anything, every cow in the field did the same.

"That's good, son. Now see that Kanamit spaceship over the town? See if you cane make it go away."

Seeing the giant sacuer hovering over the Peaksville water tower, Anthony nodded and gave it his most angry look. In the blink of an eye, the spaceship vanished. Anthony's father nearly drove off the road.

As he parked the car, he considered how his son was able to do this so quickly. It was like his power had been pent up all this time just waiting to do something. And now that it was out there, it was really going to do its thing.

Stepping out of the car, Anthony slammed the door behind him. With tiny fists clenched, he walked toward a nearby cornfield. There, floating television sets assembled before him.

"Go away!" he shouted. As he held one hand up, Anthony looked like a little soldier engaged in an angry salute. "You go away, Kanamits. You be gone!"

Each TV set showed a Kanamit spaceship over a different city. One by one, each ship vanished.

With a slight glare, Anthony turned back to his father and spoke in a voice of calm authority that was almost chilling.

"They're gone. They're all gone. And I don't want them ever coming back."

"No one does," Anthony's father said. "And what about the spaceships with the people in them? Did you bring them back, too?"

"Sure did," Anthony said as he nodded his head.

His father knelt down. "There's one more thing you must do, son. Wherever you sent the Kanamits, send yourself there, too."

Anthony looked mildly surprised at first then shocked, hurt even. "But I can't. What if other aliens try to invade Earth?"

His father smiled a reassuring smile. "You can watch us from where you are. And if anyone else does try to hurt us, you can come back and send them all away."

"I could, I suppose," Anthony said uncertainly.

Still smiling, Mr. Fremont clutched his son's shoulders. "Don't you see, son? If anything happens to you, the Kanamits will be set loose again, and we'll have no one to protect us."

Anthony looked deep in thought. "Well, I don't want the Kanamits to come back."

"Of course you don't," Mr. Fremont said, now smiling with moist eyes. "And you know what? You can play with the Kanamits, just the way you do with your two-headed gophers or some of the children."

At that, Anthony did something very rare: he not only smiled he lit up.

"I'll do it!"

"Good for you, son. Good for you." As father embraced son, the tall man became even more tearful. "Goodbye, Anthony," he whispered.

"'Bye, Dad."

Once he ended the embrace, Mr. Fremont stood.

"Everyone will be very grateful," he said as his voice cracked. "Your mother will be very proud."

As he usually did, Anthony showed no emotion as he turned and walked into the cornfield. Once between the cornstalks, he slowly faded out of sight.

As life got back to normal on Earth, Anthony watched it all from his little kingdom where he lived in an exact duplicate of his family's farm. In that other dimension, Anthony swung on a wooden fence.

Behind him was the cornfield. In that cornfield, as far as the eye could see, were Kanamits. Each one was a giant jack-in-the-box with its head bobbing up and down.

Above the cornfield, Kanamits groaned and sobbed as they slowly twirled around high above the cornstalks.

From his wooden fence swing, Anthony shouted his orders.

"You fly and twirl, you bad Kanamits! You keep spinning until I say stop!"


End file.
